Rosh Hashanah

Today it is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, called Rosh Hashanah. This feast is in the Autumn, as the harvest is inside and the nature is dying. This is seen as the right moment to make a new beginning. In order to make this new beginning they bring into memory their deeds from the past year. If necessary they ask forgiveness if someone is hurt by their deeds. They do this not only to God, but also to the person who they have hurt.

Some Jews will walk beside a stream of water and, say a special prayer (Tashlich) and throw breadcrumbs into the stream, hoping their wrongdoings, just as the crumbs will go away with the stream. If Aline reads this, or other Major- Arcana- students, they will remember this custom from the story of Bella Chagall about Rosh Hashannah, in the lesson about Justice.

Rachel Pollack mentions this custom in her Shining Tribe Tarot, and pictures it on a card, slightly changed. On one of the cards in this deck a person has thrown a ragged robe into a stream which represents his or her old self, a way of life. The person is wearing a tallit, a prayer-shwal (a Jewish liturgical garment) to show that atonement not means just discarding a one pattern for a new, but entering a life of greater meaning.

Another important feature of Rosh Hashanah is the hope that the next year will be good and sweet. Therefore apples are eaten, dipped in honey, and fresh blessed fruit of the new harvest.

To tune in on this holiday several tarot-questions are possible. You can pull a card that resembles your past year; a card that shows what to atone for; a card that shows how to righten issues with people in relationships that went wrong; a card that shows (Gods') forgiveness; a card that symbolizes the sweetness of the year to come or your wish for the coming year.

In my next entry I pull a card about one theme of this holiday, right now I must leave.